


Incompletion in completion

by theninjadalek



Category: Batman - All Media Types, DCU, DCU (Comics), Under the Red Hood
Genre: jason is a revenant
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-10-13
Updated: 2017-10-24
Packaged: 2019-01-16 20:58:13
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,576
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12350520
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theninjadalek/pseuds/theninjadalek
Summary: Jason rises from the grave on his own to complete one final task before he can rest. As he continues on his journey towards his goal, his priorities begin to shiftAU in which Jason is a revenant (basically a solid ghost) and the batfam doesn't know this





	1. Restoration

**Author's Note:**

> Just had this idea, the main part of it is coming up in chapter 2, so watch for that, this is just world building pretty much

 

Jason digs his way out of two inches of oak and six feet of dirt on his own. He pulls himself out of his own grave with ghostly fingers, a soul given a body to complete unfinished business. His chest does not heave with with breath and his heart does not beat, but he is moving and ready to complete his vengeance.His mind is gone though, still buried underneath the Gotham grit of the cemetery. He wanders through the city on his own for two months, surviving off of gut instinct and the muscle memory of fighting. Talia finds him in an alley, sitting motionless against a wall and staring straight ahead. He has long since ditched his jacket and button up for a dingy hoodie, too dirty to really have any true color. She recognizes the face of the second robin even through the grime and even without his spark of life. Talia steps towards him, her expensive shoes clicking gently on the grungy concrete.

“Collect him. We will bring him back to the League,” she orders the assassins flanking her. As soon as the first one touches the child, expecting no resistance, Jason comes to life. He punches and kicks with a slightly clumsier version of the combat skills he had as Robin and there is a brief struggle before he is finally sedated. Talia laughs.

“We will make something of you yet, little bird.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

For three months Talia trains him. His mind is still gone, but his body quickly learns how to defend itself. Still, Talia’s father is unsatisfied.

“How can he be an effective operative if he has no thoughts? He obeys without question, that much is good, but he will not go beyond the defense of himself or you. Fix this or he will be disposed of.”

So Talia comes to a solution, extreme and most likely against her father’s wishes. She sneaks Jason into the Lazarus pit and jumpstarts his brain with crackling green fire. He comes back into the world shrieking and enraged. The pit has brought his mind back to his constructed body. The green magic of the pit intertwines with the magic already running through his veins to make him into a solid ghost and pulls his mind back from the other side. Finally he is complete.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Talia is delighted with the progression of his training from there. She uses little half truths to manipulate him and twist him towards revenge. Talia knows that he isn’t exactly human anymore and tests the boundaries of his reanimated body. She discovers that it isn’t truly a human body, but a construct fueled by his spirit. He does not breathe or eat. His heart does not beat and his body, although solid to the touch, flickers in and out of video feeds and shows up as a cold spot on thermal imaging. Until he leaves for Gotham, his code name is Revenant.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

As soon as Jason steps foot in Gotham, he feels the rush of “home,” in his veins. As the Red Hood, he is quick to prove to the criminal underworld that Gotham is  _ his _ as much as it is the Bat’s. Nobody notices that he doesn’t breathe or tire, and they chalk up the sudden chill when he enters a room to simple fear.

He captures the Joker and is closer than ever before to completing his unfinished business and finally being able to rest. Batman intervenes. Slices at Jason’s throat with a batarang to save the Joker. Jason has planned for this contingency and the bomb he had planted goes off. He’s not fast enough and the Joker lives. Bruce doesn’t find Jason in the wreckage, doesn’t see that his body flickers with ghost green light and the slash across his throat isn’t bloody, is already healed to a thin white scar. Another tally of pain, another brand against his name.


	2. Revelation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Messages are left.  
> ~~~~~  
> This takes place somewhere in a weird mashup of all the various iterations of Batman canon

Jason waits. He has all the time in the world to wait. While he waits, he investigates the new Robin Talia had told him about. He discovers that the Robin that replaced him (Tim, his mind supplies) has now been replaced himself by the son of Talia and Bruce. Jason chuckles darkly and sets out to warn him of the various dangers of  vigilantism. 

Jason finds Tim out in the city patrolling as the newly christened Red Robin. He chases the young hero across the city and leaves him pinned to the side of a building by his costume with three of his own batarangs.

“Who are you,” Tim yells across the dingy street. Jason walks back over and laughs softly, the sound twisted and broken by the electronic voice modulator in his helmet into a glitching mess.

“He really didn’t tell you? Bruce didn’t share his dirty little secret?,” amused disbelief is evident even through the crackling of speakers “I’m his favorite cautionary tale. Be careful, baby bird. Not all of his secrets are as nice as I am”

The Red Hood fades into the darkness after pressing the distress signal on Tim’s belt. Nightwind finds him minutes later.

“Who did this?,” he demands, normally cheery voice gone hard.

“Red Hood.” Tim’s answer is soft in comparison, his mind flitting from fact to fact attempting to combine the evidence into an explanation that actually makes sense. “Who is he N? He said he knows B, he knew his  _ real name _ , but B’s never really talked about him aside from that time he tried to kill the Joker. Even then he didn’t say much.”

“You think Batman knows something more?” Tim nods in response as Dick helps him down from the wall. Dick speaks again.

“I guess B has some questions to answer.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Tim and Dick wait in the batcave for Bruce to return, having changed into sweatpants and t’s after Dick had checked the younger vigilante over for any injuries beyond little nicks and bruises. Together, they scoured the cave’s computer for any information on the Red Hood, but anything beyond the most basic of facts had been heavily encrypted and password protected. The file only contained information about his work as a crime lord and his murders of criminals. He seemed only to go after the worst of the worst, his victims were mostly known murderers, drug dealers and rapists.

“Guess he must be the mob-boss with a heart of gold with a record like that. How did B keep all this from us?” Dick says disbelievingly. Tim huffs out a little sound of frustration and attacks the keyboard with renewed fervor.

“Whoever he is, Bruce definitely knows more about him. He’s redacted a ton of data. Including the guy’s name and anything beyond basic statistics. I  _ might  _ be able to get at some of the data if I can figure out what password he used.” Tim sounded doubtful of his last statement. 

The batmobile roared into the cave, coming to a stop in its usual parking spot. Damian and Bruce emerge from the sleek car, unaware of their visitors.

“Bruce,” Dick calls across the cave, his voice echoing eerily in the stone room. Tim shrinks a little in his seat on instinct, sensing the oncoming confrontation. Bruce only grunts in response, striding over to the computer bank to see what they had pulled up. He stops cold several feet in front of the monitor at the sight of Red Hood’s file. Damian continued on until he was standing right next to the eldest of the Wayne wards and tilted his head in birdlike confusion.

“Grayson, what is going on?”

Dick only ruffled Damian’s hair and continued to stare at his father, a question in his gaze.

“Bruce, what do you know about the Red Hood?” Dick’s voice contains equal parts question and challenge.

“Why do you need to know?” Bruce growls out, still in Batman mode. Tim shrinks lower into his seat at the low rumble of Bruce’s voice. Dick’s knuckles go white on the back of the computer chair, his body filled with enough tension to snap.

“Because, **_Bruce_ ** , he pinned Tim to a wall like some goddamned butterfly and left him there for me to find. He knew your  _ name _ . If you know something about him and you’re hiding it, you best speak up, because I need to know who is going around attacking my little brother.” Dick’s chest heaves with all of the emotion of his outburst and he stares accusingly at Bruce.

Bruce deflates, shoulders sinking. The Batman peels off his cowl with practiced hands and rubbed tiredly at his eyes, robbed of his defenses by Dick’s yelling. His next words are soft, quiet.

“It’s Jason,” he whispers hoarsely into  the silence of the room.

“What,” Dick responds flatly. Tim straightens up more, no longer hiding from the shouting in his computer chair. Damian’s eyes play high speed ping-pong between his father and his eldest brother. Bruce’s hands drop from his face. He sighs.

“The Red Hood. The Red Hood is Jason Todd. I believe that Talia may have resurrected him in the Lazarus pit,” Damian and Tim both inhale sharply at the mention of the Pit. Dick continues his flinty silence. Hs accusing stare prompts Bruce to reveal more. “ He’s not the boy we lost anymore Dick. The Pit made him insane. It made him a killer. When he tried to kill the Joker, he was going to force me to pull the trigger before he killed me and himself.” Bruce’s voice is pleading.

“You understand why I couldn’t tell you,” Bruce appeals to his eldest.

Dick turns away. He puts one hand on Tim’s shoulder and uses his other to pull Damian closer to him. He starts to lead both of the younger boys towards the exit of the cave. 

“No I don’t understand,” he says as he passes Bruce. “Tim, Damian, get your stuff, you guys are spending the night at my apartment while Bruce takes some time to think about this.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Tim and Damian meet their brother outside the front door. Jason watches them leave the manor from the shadows at the top of a tree. He flickers in and out of focus.


	3. Recollection

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jason is not quite a memory.

Dick leaves his littlest brothers asleep on the queen-sized bed in his apartment. He would take the couch if he could sleep tonight. As it is, he paces the apartment, wide awake. Dick steps out onto the fire escape and rests his elbows on the railing. From the shadows, Jason watches, his helmet still on. He steps forward into the small pool of yellowed light next to Dick, matching his posture against the railing.

“Mind if I smoke Dickiebird?” Jason asks into the relative silence.

“Go for it.” Dick sounds tired.

Jason pulls off his helmet and sets it down against the wall of the building. He pulls out a cigarette, seemingly from nowhere, and a lighter. The smoke curls around his face unnaturally, clings to his skin, lights up green in front of his eyes. Dick turns his head to watch, see his brother all grown up. Jason is taller than Dick now, probably heavier too if the broadness of his shoulders is anything to go by. He has the same unruly curls of black hair, identical to his younger self with the exception of a shock of white in the front. Dick is so focused on cataloging the differences in his younger brother’s appearance, that he doesn’t notice Tim looking out on them from the window. 

“Why didn’t you tell Alfred and Bruce you were back?I get not telling me, I wasn’t exactly the greatest brother, but Bruce tried to be a good father,” Dick asks.

Jason dragged a hand through his hair, pulling the white stripe at the front, and let out another plume of smoke. He laughed low in his throat.

“He didn’t care about me Dick. He was too late to save me, that much I forgive him for, but I was barely gone before he’d already replaced me with a shiny, new Robin. I should have been the last one,”His voice raises in an angry crescendo and Jason turns to face his older brother “He’s killing these kids Dick. Whether he knows it or not. And it could take a week or a decade, but sooner or later this gig,  _ Bruce’s _ gig, is going to kill them. I had to warn him.”

“I’m still here,” Dick says, not quite a rebuttal. Jason laughs again and shakes his head.

“For how long? Wanna know the worst part?” Jason leans forward until he’s at eye level with Dick and only inches away. “They’ll blame themselves.” 

Jason’s voice is sure and venomous. Dick shivers and tells himself it’s only the cold outside. Jason backs away and goes back to smoking quietly, his posture a perfect echo of a young boy who had snuck cigarettes on the manor rooftop and next to the gargoyles all across the city. Dick’s heart hurts with the memory. They stand out there silent for half an hour before it becomes apparent that Jason doesn’t have any more words for Dick and Dick decides to go inside, leaving Jason alone on the fire escape.

“You can come out now, he went back inside,” Jason calls out.

Tim drops gently onto the fire escape from the hiding spot he’d crept over to while Jason and Dick had talked. He stands next to Jason. Tim is dwarfed by him.

“I think you’re taller than Bruce now.”

Jason just hums in response, still smoking. The air next to Jason is cold enough that Tim’s breath fogs in the summer night. Pieces fall together like puzzles in Tim’s head, swirling cigarette smoke coalesces into solidity. Jason’s  eyes flash in Tim’s memory, a pit of souls behind them. In Tim’s mind, Jason goes from merely stepping out of the shadows to forming from them before making himself visible. When he thinks about it, it really does make sense that Jason would be back for unfinished business. He neatly fit all the categories that fictional stories required to make a ghost. His death was violent and there were far too many loose ends left untied. Tim wonders if he would have stayed at rest if Bruce had killed the Joker. A darker part of his mind whispers that Jason might have stayed at rest if Tim had never taken Robin for himself

“When will you tell them?”

“Hmm? Oh. That. Clever bird, aren't ya? I'll tell them when they’re willing to believe.”

“Will you disappear when you kill him?” Jason notes the conspicuous lack of if in that question.

“I don’t know.”

“Maybe you came back for something else.” Tim doesn’t want to have to count the days until Jason vanishes. 

“It doesn’t matter.”Jason turns his face to the sky and Tim watches the edges of his profile blur with the same halo old street lights have. Jason closes his eyes and exhales curling tendrils of fog. Then he just stops. The fog settles around him and still too. Tim watches him for ten minutes. An hour. He waits for any sign of movement and only sees small flickers when his eyes can’t decide if it’s Red Hood or Robin standing on the fire escape, still as a memory, the same cigarette frozen mid- smolder between his fingertips. Tim falls asleep leaning on the railing. He wakes up curled on the floor, wrapped in gunsmoke scented leather. 


End file.
